The Athena in Leicester has cancelled a show by David Icke following contact from Campaign Against Antisemitism, Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council. He has now made a terribly dull 17-minute video haranguing us, the venue, a local counter-terrorism police officer and the Council.

Mr Icke preaches to large audiences that the world is run by an evil group mostly consisting of prominent Jews whom he calls “Rothschild Zionists”. He tells his disciples that these “Rothschild Zionists” are in fact inhuman “reptilians” conspiring to cheat all of humanity, with governments, media and banks in their grasp.

We contacted the Athena in Leicester in August last year to alert them to Mr Icke’s views. Subsequently, representatives from Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council approached the venue and made their views clear.

A Leicestershire Police spokesman told the Leicester Mercury: “Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council were made aware of an event due to be held by David Icke and that a number of letters and e-mails from concerned members of the public had already been received by the venue in Leicester. Representatives from both organisations met with the venue’s owners to discuss these public concerns and to ensure the owners of the premises were aware of their obligations under licensing legislation. The venue subsequently decided to cancel the event.”

We commend Leicestershire Police and Leicester City Council for stepping in, and the management of the Athena for making the right decision.

The Athena joins a long list of venues which have recently cancelled Mr Icke’s bookings, including Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, Central Hall in Southampton, St Andrew’s Hall in Norwich, the Lowry Hotel in Salford, Sheffield City Hall and the Gladstone Theatre in Wirral.

The last time Mr Icke’s event was cancelled at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, he was forced to cram his followers into a strange half-built cellar.

However other shamelessly help Mr Icke to reach a wider audience, such as viral social media video company Unilad which made a special ten-minute video in which Mr Icke spoke about his views, albeit not his invective about “Rothschild Zionists”.

Mr Icke uses social media, his books and his stage performances to incite hatred. His preaching is so absurd that since the 1990s he has been dismissed as a crank, but because he is dismissed there has been no major opposition to him and he has built up a following of thousands upon thousands of disciples whom he has persuaded to adamantly believe that the world is in the grip of a conspiracy run by the “Rothschild Zionists”. His repertoire includes conspiracy myths and tropes classified as antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by the British Government.

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